VAT

Walking down the street to Tesco
I noticed that many shop windows advertised
action regarding the recent lowering of the VAT.
I even got a text from O2 saying that
they would give me back a few pence with
each top-up because of the VAT policy.

This all made me think of Robert E. Lucas'
assertions on rational expectations. I wrote about
this not too long ago in my macroeconomics essay
for uni, and it was a really interesting concept to me.
According to Lucas, rational expectations negated
fiscal policy actions because humans were not
so easily fooled by the policies and continued
to act according to the reality of the economy.

For example, the government may put forth policy,
such as the lowering of VAT in order to make things
cheaper, which using Keynes' model they expect
to stimulate spending in the economy with a multiplied effect.
Nonetheless, people are not imbeciles,
they do not just see the lower tax rate and
say "Ooh, I think this means I should go on a shopping spree!"

The present situation of Marks and Spencers
is a testament to the ineffectiveness of the fiscal policy:
"The swift repeat of the M&S sale day suggests that
high street stores have seen little impact in their tills
of this week's 2.5 percentage point cut in VAT."
-So good it is doing it twice The Guardian 3 Dec 2008.
(see the article here)

Particularly in the current situation, the news of
the credit crunch and recession have been so
widely discussed that all are aware of it.
Therefore even though people know that they will
save a few pence on their groceries, they are not
going to drastically change their spending habits
because they know that the economy is not looking good
in the near future so they must be cautious.

In any case, what is so wrong with being cautious?
There is a atrocious amount of debt in developed countries
from the excessive use of credit cards. Perhaps
people should take this opportunity to give their
credit cards a rest and have a lesson in saving.

copyright

I discovered that someone [with a PhD!]
had written an article in response to one of mine,
and that he actually referenced me in it!
With the amount of research and referencing
that I've been doing for my political theory essays
lately, it is so unbelievable to think that someone
is taking information from something I've said!
It is such an exciting feeling, and I hope that this
is just the start! This really makes me want to
write some more articles. I resolve to do so
during my break, and in the future. I suppose for
my age I'm already decently well-published,
my first article published was when I was 12.
Nonetheless, it is not enough! I need to be more proactive! :)

Anyway, you can read the articles that were
written in response to mine here.
OOH I'm so proud! ^___^

thanksgiving

This was my very first Thanksgiving without my family,
which was tremendously sad, but it's lucky I have my
substitute uni family :)

Even though none of them are American, they helped me
to celebrate this occasion. We had everything from
Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mash and veg
to the sweet potato I made the style my mum would.
Topped off in the end with apple pie and ice cream!
Ono-licious ^___^



Nonetheless, I still miss my mother's amazing cooking,
and their presence on one of my favorite holidays. Sigh.

praha!

Remember my post about getting a fantastic deal on a flight
to Prague? Well, that trip was fantastic as well!
I was reunited there with a bunch from the Liberalni Institute
Summer University seminars in 2006:


Hahha, oh and my favorite comparison between the two events
is the CHAMP foosball team :))


Anyway, it was a brilliant weekend, filled with
beautiful sights [charles' bridge]:


delicious food [traditional czech bread dumplings]:


classy bars [bar&books-truffletini <3]


and awe-inspiring art ["welcome to capitalism" modern art
exhibition at DOX-a wall of real stacked books!]


it was a magnificently "satisfactory" weekend,
and i CANNOT WAIT to return.
Prague is an amazing city, and very romantic as well.
If you know where to go. There are lovely romantically lit
walks that one can take, and cozy teahouses and cafés that are wonderful.
It can be overly touristy in parts, but go with a local
and see the wonders!


It was a really strange feeling for me when I first got there,
because i realised how at home I feel in Eastern Europe.
After spending awhile in Lithuania this past summer, it
feels familiar and comfortable in such a place. In everything
from the grocery products [i was able to have the cereal
I used to eat in Lithuania! <3] to the transportation systems
to the people. It felt wonderful.

let it snow

Last night I saw my first snow fall, It was brilliantly exciting.

I ran to Linval across the hall and breathlessly asked him
what was happening outside.

He took me to the window and said in his British accent from Essex,
"Darling, this is what we call here snow."

I grabbed him and we dashed outside
(a little exaggeration here, because i did need a coat).

I caught snowflakes in my hands and they landed on my face;
it was gorgeous.



The people here accustomed to cold are rather gloomy about the whole affair,
because this is just the start and it's going to get so much worse they tell me.
For the time being however it's delightful!

There was still a little bit on the grass this morning when I woke up.
Now though it has been melted away by the sunshine.
Another amazing thing here, sunshine! hahah.

libertarian alliance conference

This past weekend the Libertarian Alliance hosted a conference
at the National Liberal Club, One Whitehall Place

There were some really great speakers at the event,
among the best known were: David Friedman and Hans Herman Hoppe.
Friedman is a wonderfully good speaker, and his topic
of technological possibilities in the future and how they can
affect our freedom was quite interesting.
Hoppe talked about an anarcho-capitalist world,
where insurance companies can be used to fill the roles
of moderating amongst individuals in the absence of government.


Two other lectures were particularly of interest for me because
they covered subjects that I used for teaching in the camps this summer.
These were: education and privatising roads.
James Stansfield discussed the situation in Africa where
even in the slums private education had sprung up to compensate
for the inadequate government school system.
Not only did these private schools exist, but they were
much better at educating the children.
Parents in these areas were willing to pay 10%
of their incomes in order to have their children educated,
and this is in one of the poorest areas of the world.
This was a perfect example for me to use in future discussions
about education!

A few of us from the Polish camp were reunited at the conference,
which was good fun. A lot of people came up asking about the LLI camps,
so perhaps we'll have a few new teachers next year :)
One guy had even taught at the Slovakian camp these past two years.


Anyway, it was a marvelous event, hopefully i'll be able to go to more in the future.

random acts of spontenaiety

this morning, after my shower i looked into the mirror
and figured it was time to cut my hair. so i took out my
scissors and snip snip it was done. it's a little short
for my liking, but it feels so much fresher and smoother.
a few years back i used to change my hair in times
of either elation or melancholy. it always would occur
at odd times of the night 3 or 4AM. randomly new
colors and lengths. sometimes i regretted it the next
morning, but at least it was exciting! then perhaps one
day i decided that i cared a bit more about what people
thought; so i stopped. what a silly thing to think! ha.

next off, while i was taking a break from my studying
i decided to look up some flights to berlin to visit
frederik. the available ones were a bit pricy and he
also said that he was a bit busy unexpectedly these days
so perhaps it wouldn't be a good time. anyway, i then
started looking around at other things. voilà! i found
a flight to prague for £0! all I had to pay was £10 in taxes.
(ugh tax!) but still that isn't all that bad. so i up and bought it!
[insert ryanair.com propaganda here]
then i asked my friends in prague that i bought the tickets
for the purpose of visiting if it'd be alright with them.
they said OF COURSE, and instantly began making plans
for my weekend there.


so basically life is good, and i'm ecstatic that i'm going to
prague a few weekends from now! you will definitely see
a post about that, because it'll be unbelievably brilliant!